No.^xir' ^^^' '^^^^ RAMAH NAVAHO — KLUCKHOHN 371 



fails, fines or jail sentences are imposed. Intermittently since 1939 

 there has been a local Navaho policeman. 



The main mechanisms of social control in daily life remain the 

 informal and customary ones. The Ramah Navaho have never 

 constituted a unified and tightly knit community. Trends in this 

 direction have been sporadic, short lived, and artificial because insti- 

 gated from the outside. During an interval in the forties when the 

 agent at Black Rock was exceptionally interested in the Ramah 

 Navaho and was liked and trusted by them, the chapter house was 

 built by voluntary effort and there was an attempt to run a cooperative 

 trading store with two veterans as managers. But this latter venture 

 collapsed after a few years, and the store was sold to one of the Mor- 

 mon traders from Ramah. Probably one of the principal reasons 

 that the Navaho have been much less resistant to cultural change 

 than the Zuni is the lack of a strong central social and political orga- 

 nization to oppose change. 



RELIGION 



Navaho religion in general, and that of the Ramah Navaho in 

 particular, has been presented at great length in numerous pubU- 

 cations (see Rapoport, 1954). Here, therefore, I shall only add a 

 little new material. 



The 1940-50 period was one during which a fair number of Ramah 

 Navahos for longer or shorter periods completely rejected their 

 native religion. However, Vogt's (1951, p. 107) figures on ceremonial 

 participation of 15 young men during 1947 demonstrate that only 1 

 failed to attend a single ceremonial during that year and the mean 

 number of ceremonials attended was 10.6. Indeed there are other 

 hints (such as increased taking of sweat baths during at least 1947 

 and 1948) of a response of antagonistic acculturaltion to missionary 

 activity, the Ramah Navaho Day School, and other new pressures. 

 The number of witchcraft stories (gossip and actual accusations) 

 also hit a new peak during the 1945-50 epoch. This latter probably 

 reflects the heightened economic anxieties and increased interpersonal 

 tension consequent upon economic threat, erosion of the traditional 

 culture and the reforming of the community after the dislocations of 

 World War II (soldiers leaving and returning, men and whole families 

 leaving the area to work in ammunition depots, etc.). The peyote 

 reUgion has gained no adherents at Ramah. 



A vivid and detailed account of Navaho rehgion in the life of one 

 person (himself a diviner) wUl be found in Leighton and Leighton 

 (1948). Spencer (1957) has analyzed intensively a portion of Navaho 

 mythology to throw light on Navaho life view. 



